[:en]AREQUIPA – Three trouble-free stages, a difficult marathon stage and a robbery of the team’s press car. It was quite a week for Tim and Tom Coronel!

The first part of the 2019 Dakar Rally is in the books. The five really demanding stages have caused plenty of victims. With their brand-new ‘Beast 2.0’, Tim and Tom Coronel made it through the first few days surprisingly well without any issues. For the twins, however, the marathon stage was a turning point. Some reliability issues occurred, but they could be solved without too much effort. That allowed Tim and Tom to look back with a good feeling during the rest day.

“The rest day, finally! At least, that is what they call it, but in reality, everybody is busier on the rest day than on a normal day,” Tom reported from the bivouac. “We gave the car a good service. There were some problems with the tyre deflation system and the compressor. These have now been solved for the second week. The air filter had to be cleaned as well from all the fesh fesh. Man, that is quite dirty stuff. But now, everything looks spic and span again for the second week.”

Tim added: “We now have a bonnet on our car again as well. We had lost it in the dunes. Now it looks nice and shiny again. The team worked incredibly hard, so that we are ready to take on the second week. So far, we haven’t had too many real problems. Everything is going quite smoothly. Yes, the odd setback, but that is the Dakar Rally for you. They really try to wear you out, but they don’t know the Coronels yet!”

The sixth stage is taking place on Sunday. From Arequipa, competitors head to San Juan de Marcona, a distance of 810 kilometres including 309 special stage kilometres.[:]